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07 December 2011

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Thirty years ago the Republic of Zimbabwe was one of the
richest countries in sub-Saharan Africa. A newly independent state, blessed
with modern infrastructure and boasting the continent’s highest literacy rate,
she was poised for a future that seemed to carry nothing but the promise of
success. Africa’s Paradise, they called her, little did they know that soon
Zimbabwe would, to quote William Blake, “build a Hell in Heaven’s respite”.

In ‘The Fear’ by Peter Godwin, which is in some ways a
continuation of his bestselling, “When A Crocodile Eats the Sun”, Peter goes
home to bear witness to a Zimbabwe, that not even I as a Zimbabwean am familiar
with. A country with the highest inflation in the world, racked by political
violence and gripped in the most critical economic crisis to hit a Southern
African country. It is a book that I failed to put down for almost the duration
of the 24 hours it took me to read it, it struck to my core and painted a grim,
startling picture of what I call my home.

For those of you who share the same home, and to whom the
name Godwin sounds familiar, Peter is
the brother of Georgina Godwin who used to be a Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation
(ZBC) newsreader during the golden years of the country. Together with their
mother, Peter and Georgina, were forced to leave the country as were thousands
upon thousands of other white farmers during the chaotic land reform process of
1998 which preceded the decline of the Zimbabwean economy. It is a sore point
in African politics with the fierce nationalists declaring it an African
Renaissance whereas the pragmatics point to the land reform as an example of
how to destroy a country. When I met President Robert Mugabe last year, he was still
refusing to recognise a link between the eviction of the farmers and the
economy’s spectacular collapse.

Fast forward to 2008 and a country in ruins, not even I am
able to recognise it between the pages of this book. Political violence affects
most of the rural population as the Presidential elections descend into chaos,
political opponents resort to murdering each other, and Peter can do nothing
other than bear witness, the very act of which is risking his own life.

“White man’s flesh
marks easily, it is a pale canvas on which the path of pain is easily painted.
But it takes a lot more to mark a black man. Somehow, the palette of black
wounds seem more violent, tearing down through dark skin, into the yellow curd
of subcutaneous fat, the red gristle of muscle fibres, down to the shocking
whiteness of bones.”

His more gruesome testimonies have their edges softened by his
recollections of childhood, when he was a Zimbabwean citizen, before the
political class change their minds. Furtive visits to estates where he used to
spend the holidays, the portrait, well lit in his memories somewhat tarnished by
the sad reality that faces him now. Gone are the vistas of crops, replaced by
an ever growing wilderness and the rusty shacks of war vets who have displaced
even the black farm workers.

“Our other home was in
Mhangura in the north-west of the country, on the edge of the Zambezi
escarpment. To get there we set out on the old Great North Road. It originates
in Cape Town, continues the length of South Africa and up through Zimbabwe. At
Harare, it veers west and goes up over the Great Dyke mountain range (a
uniquely stratified chrome-rich igneous ridge, over three hundred miles long,
visible from space). It winds through the once productive farming areas of
Banket and Chinhoyi, and down through Lions’ Den, and Karoyi – which means ‘little
witch’, so called because it was the site of witch trials by immersion (if you
sank you were innocent) – to the Zambezi River at Chirundu where it crosses
into Zambia, with a left fork to Lake Kariba.”

Littered with little nuggets of recollections that even I as
a native Zimbabwean did not know the book for me raises the uncomfortable
questions of the definition of an African. By all means, the refusal of the
current government to recognise Peter and his kin as Zimbabweans with the
rights to settle in Zimbabwe, extends by implication to my tribe, the Ndebele,
who arrived and settled in Zimbabwe only a few decades before the white
settlers arrived. But that is a philosophical question, Peter presents real
problems, real issues that leave one gasping for breath and reaching for your
nearest copy of the Zimbabwe Constitution, the Geneva Convention, or anything
to try and convince oneself that normality still exists.

Because in ‘The Fear’, you are met with a world gone mad.
Zimbabwean set upon Zimbabwean in an orgy of violence, political machinations
that go in the night and care not an iota for the peasant in his hut. It is a
story untold, a revolution that died in its tracks, heroes buried away in
secret graves, activists disappearing in unmarked cars, carried into the dark
bosom of the night, never to be seen again, their crime? Dreaming of a better
future. I said recently to a friend of mine, that this book should be a set
book in Zimbabwean schools because the stories that it tells are stories that
need to be told, a conversation that Zimbabweans in particular, and Africans in
general need to start having before we can create any recognisable path to a
better future.

There are extraordinary men and women in Zimbabwe,
extraordinary people who have dedicated their lives to creating a better land
for their progeny. ‘The Fear’ documents their courageous sacrifices in the hope
that their battle was not fought in vain, and that one day, when we have built,
“a Heaven in Hell’s despair”, their names will be remembered, their sacrifices never
to be forgotten.

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About Me

Why echoes of my voice? I actually don't know. As to what I am going to write about? I have no idea either. Expect sudden thoughts that erupt from my mind, uncensored and blemished as they are by the harsh bias of my opinion. I apologize in advance if I offend your sensibilities but that's what they are there for, to be offended. Defend them in the comments section (politeness is always welcome) and lets see what we come up with. I'm a normal person who's lived a normal life in a world that persistently refuses to be normal.